


blood-red sun

by glass_icarus



Category: Ysabel - Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-15
Updated: 2007-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-14 08:42:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glass_icarus/pseuds/glass_icarus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ysabel, waiting for her lovers to find her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blood-red sun

**Author's Note:**

> Birthday fic for sambethe.

She watches the sun rise red over the horizon, more than two thousand years old- a dream of warmth up here in the raging wind; a crimson stain upon the barren rock. She wonders if she should be tired of this, their endless game of chance, of choice. One or the other, as it has always been.

There is only and ever room for one of them, it seems, though she has loved them both.

 _Anwyll_ , she remembers naming him, naming them; the only name that matters. Wolf or warrior, stranger or kinsman, they are always beloved, the bright stars by which she steers her heart. She has never told them that, in the long spiral of their days. She has never needed to.

It is the third day, the third morning, and she wants to be found. She is aware of something new inside of her, some impulse that tempers the ferocity of her savage heart, and longs for an unstained morning-after. The rest of her is older, though, a legacy of wilder blood; she is not naive enough to believe that one day the world will be large enough to grant her both of them. Not in this life, nor in any life thereafter.

She has never calculated the weight of their collective sins. She doubts she ever will.

She is afraid, this time, as she has never been. There is a child. Neither of them knows. One morning, just one in the long train of her days; a small, bright peace to be found before he left her, and died. So long ago. Can she even remember whose? Does it even matter? One way or another, the child belongs to both of them, born into this story without end.

The sunlight pales to gold as she watches from her hiding place, gentle fingers caressing the edge of the abyss below, a stray lock of hair. Her heartbeat thunders in her ears. Which one is it? Which one is here? She cannot tell; the sun is in her eyes, and she can only see its afterimages. The figure below her makes his way toward her with slow and tired steps. She knows before she can see his face, knows before she looks inside, finds the pale hue- a new color under the sun.

She sees him stop, turn toward the abyss, the wind ripping through his hair. Her mouth opens of its own volition, a mother's instinct. "It is windy up here," she says, and sees his face.


End file.
